I have been training agility with my mal Wiley since last November. I had previously done some agility and low level trialing with my aussieX Zoe, and then had started training my first toller Piper who passed away tragically last summer. I knew I was going to need some extra guidance with Wiley, so I started auditing Silvia Trkman's Agility Foundations course, which was so fabulous that I changed my auditing spot to a working spot.

It's been a bit of an up hill battle teaching him to be sensitive to the bar, and use his body smartly, he's sort of a go for it now think later kind of dog, but we have worked lots on thinking in drive, proofing bars (taking single jumps while I try and distract him with a toy or purposely poor handling), and he's finally finally started to pick his feet up and take responsibility for the bar. Lots and lots more work do but... it's coming...

Recently we completed Justine Davenport's (Canadian agility prodigy) online handling foundations class. I watched videos of her dog at the 2012 Canada Cup and I decided I needed to train with this girl, so when I heard about her online class I was thrilled. We've done a couple seminars with her in person on her Ontario tours, and she is great to work with. The first seminar I did with her Wiley had been doing agility for 4 months, and we were just starting to piece things together, and he was insane. It was the middle of January and it was his first time in a facility large enough for him to fully extend in sequence (our indoor options around me are cramped). He managed to get himself tangled in a PVC jump wing (with the 5" wing gap stuck around his waist - he didn't notice until he didn't fit in the tunnel) trying to turn tight. So funny, so typical Wiley.

Anyways, here is a video of a course we did last night (we being Panzerotti, our friend Janie and myself). It was a jumpers course from the recent Canada Cup tournament. A little bit messy in the handling but our teamwork is a work in progress. I hope to debut him in AAC this September. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n5gqmGvkSgc

I posted Payton's fun run video to Trkman's class last night because I was in another one of my HE'S HORRIBLE IT'S GOING TO BE A DISASTER I'M THE WORST DOG TRAINER EVER moments. She said he looks to be paying attention to what's going on, which is good because sometimes I think he's not paying any attention. But she agrees that he lacks forward drive and focus. She recommended going back and doing more restrained sends.

I'm trying to come up with a good battle plan for the next few weeks as far as what to train and when. I want to keep working on contacts, but we don't need contacts until August 10th, and we need good jumping and weave habits by the 20th of this month. I don't want to NOT work on contacts because then I'll be like "CRAP I DON'T HAVE OUR CONTACTS DONE." I truly need to prioritize his jump work above all else which I have been bad about. It's the most important skill but the one I've worked on the least in the last six months or so. We also need to keep working on weaves. But of course I agree that he needs better sends and I really want to work on that too, probably with a tunnel to start...
And I don't want to OVERtrain...

I am kicking myself for not bringing my video cam to our last agility trial. Really, really wish I had Mira's runs on video, especially standard. You know those moments where everything comes together and you just move completely in concert with your dog? We had that kind of weekend, and it felt great. Tough course with interesting technical elements and she made it feel easy.

I'm bad too. I just hate asking people to video for me, though I don't mind when other people ask me.

The trial I most recently went to (on the 4th), I got lucky because we happened to have a video service there. I wasn't going to buy any videos, but I was showing the Excellent/Masters Standard course map to some people and they were interested in the video. So, I contacted the video guy and asked for it. Which all is really just a segue to share the video, because Tess makes me smile.

I almost sent her off course twice, and she just kept trekking on with a smile on her face. Not our best time, but that's what happens when you forget where you're going.

Restrained sends to a tunnel with Payton today and he did great!! We're only in my parent's backyard but we were almost completely across the yard width-wise and he was sending to the tunnel with joy. I only did them from that distance twice, once at the end of our session and then again after we finished jump work because I wanted him to blow off steam after the jumping.

We did set point, straight line grids, straight line with height, and progressive grids today. I was worried about the progressive grid because we did it right after the straight line and straight line with height grids, but he did amaaaaaazing. Like it wasn't even a challenge. It was beautiful and I was so proud.

We had out last night of classes yesterday. Came much too fast...only a 4-week class, and we missed one night due to me traveling. Our first class in almost a year so yeah.

Anyway Mira's class was great. Typical modern course design, so including varying degrees of int'l elements. Mira was on fire and having a blast yet also focused and efficient -- I completely adore working with this dog.

Kim's class was interesting. Kim's been more or less out for 14 months and is just starting to get to play again. I hadn't realized how much my handling style had evolved and changed in that time until I started running Kim again lol. She is also more likely to get the bit in her teeth and shoot into wild bounding zoomies (six years old, what?) especially after so much time off. We had several monents where she was doing one thing and I another, lol. Mostly ran clean and fast but it certainly didn't have the smooth feel of Mira's runs.

But she did a lot of good things and she's really only in the class to get familiarized with running agility in a group environment again (vs. Mira with whom my goal is to shave strides and seconds). So there was a lot of play, a lot of positive feedback whenever she made a good decision, and lots of support and speed and partying.

Webster isn't in a class but he came along and did party tricks and "helped" me set courses, so he wasn't left out